


Ezekiel Jones Lived Lifetimes

by BabblingNerd



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Episode: s02e08 And the Point of Salvation, Ezekiel Jones Appreciation Week 2018, Ezekiel Jones Remembers, Ezekiel Jones Whump, Ezekiel Jones-centric, Hurt Ezekiel Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:19:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabblingNerd/pseuds/BabblingNerd
Summary: Ezekiel Jones was in his twenties, he was young and carefree, and he was old. He was ancient and he knew everything possible about everything Cassandra and Stone and Baird knew. He knew how to disarm 24 different kinds of bombs because Baird liked to talk about it and he knew how to identify a forgery because Stone liked to tell him. But the day after his lives they hadn’t told him any of that.





	Ezekiel Jones Lived Lifetimes

Ezekiel liked to pretend he didn’t flinch at crowds. He liked to pretend that he was still able to go to sporting games and that the crowds weren’t too much, too loud. When the stadium was full and the people were filled with enthusiasm and excitement and rage it was one big crushing mass. He didn’t go with the others when Stone invited them to the local bar; he couldn’t, he was ‘sick’ and he couldn’t go to a bar with a migraine. 

Ezekiel pretended about a lot of things after they went to the DARPA facility. He pretended he didn’t remember even a single loop and he pretended that he didn’t care. He pretended that he didn’t know the stories that they had told him a hundred times and that he knew by heart and he told everyone that he hadn’t changed.

He forgot sometimes though, that he wasn't older than them. That, in their minds, he had never lived longer than any of them. He forgot that he didn’t have a burn on his hand from a scalding pipe and that the others didn’t know what he knew. 

He slipped sometimes because there was just too much that he knew now. He talked to Stone about engineering with a knowledge he wasn’t supposed to have. He charged into combat with Baird, always ready to protect her right flank from danger. Jenkins nodded to him one day and asked him how many years he had lived, he new how to recognise eyes that were older than a face. Ezekiel told him it was lifetimes and he smiled with eyes that were as old as Galahad’s were before slipping back behind his mask; he was only in his twenties after all.

He realised one day, weeks, maybe months, afterwards that he wasn’t particularly good at living in reality anymore. He forgot that wounds could not be healed at the touch of a box and that his life didn’t need to fit in his backpack. He realised the others stared when he carried his baseball bat around like a safety net and when he could tell them exactly how to use it in close combat. He forgets that, in this life, he hadn’t learnt to listen and to stay silent and they stare when he does.

The next time they fought an enemy he came straight to Baird’s side with his bat in one hand and a smile on his face. He jumped in before even Stone could, told the others where to go and laughed as he faced death. It was real death and that was better than living and constantly dying and then living on.

He pretended he didn’t know that every different light frequency had its own sound and what that sound was. He said he did not know why he was smiling when Cassandra hummed the rainbow because he wasn’t meant to know.

One of the first things Stone said after they escaped, after he finally managed to save them; was that he'd become a half-way decent person and he added that to the list of things that he had to pretend about. He had to pretend that that statement did not cut him to the bone. He acted as if it was a terrible fate even as the words made him cringe in shame and boil with anger. 

He wanted to yell at Jacob, to shout that he was older than all of them. He had lived years more than they had between one breath and the next and in moments they would never remeber and he pretended that he had forgotten. He acted like he was proud of every mock at his expense and every comment on how he didn’t know care for the others and would not do what was best for them. He did know what they needed, what would be the best course of action, he had sacrificed his life for these people so many times he had lost count. He had been clawed to pieces and bashed and suffocated beneath the crushing weight of what he had to do.

He had spent loops lying on the crate and giving up, he had spent others begging them not to go, until one loop they didn’t. For several loops, he sat there as they shared stories and he listened. He didn't realise until later that he now knew the entire history of the Roman Empire and that he could repeat it back to Stone word-for-word, every sentence.

When Ezekiel Jones, master thief, pretended not to know, he didn’t even do it for himself. He did it even though it hurt and even though he had to lie; he knew the look of pride and sadness that would fill Baird’s eyes if she knew, he had seen it so many times he had lost count. That look in her eyes was something he craved and yet never wanted to be the cause of. He let them think that he remembered nothing because he remembers lifetimes while they barely remembered a single loop that was already fading in their memory, just another adventure. Where they had lived a day, he had lived lifetimes. How could they understand how he had changed when all they remembered was one loop. How do you equate less than a day to lifetimes?

Ezekiel Jones was in his twenties, he was young and carefree, and he was old. He was ancient and he knew everything possible about everything Cassandra and Stone and Baird knew. He knew how to disarm 24 different kinds of bombs because Baird liked to talk about it and he knew how to identify a forgery because Stone liked to tell him. But the day after his lives they hadn’t told him any of that. 

So, Ezekiel pretended he wasn’t scared of crowds, that he didn’t know the world that lay at his friends' fingertips, and he pretended that there wasn't always baseball bat hanging by his side because of fear.

Ezekiel Jones lived lifetimes in a day and then he pretended he didn’t.


End file.
